Playing cards

ABSTRACT

A deck of playing cards having front sides with face depiction spots arranged on two halves. The appearance of the rear sides of the cards is preferably coordinated with the face depiction spots.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

This invention relates to playing cards.

2. Description of the Related Art

Packs of playing cards have long been used to play card games. Playingcards generally are referred to as having front faces that are directedtoward the player holding the cards in his hand, and rear faces that aredirected away from that player when the card are held in his hand.Because the invention herein utilizes depictions of faces on the cards(see discussion below), however, the terms “front side” and “rear side”of the cards will be used herein instead of “front face” and “rearface”.

Generally, packs of cards comprise fifty-two cards, with the front sidesdivided into four suits (clubs, spades, diamonds and hearts) havingthirteen different values of each suit (ace through ten, jack, queen,and king). The rear side is generally some distinctive design, ordecorative picture or scene. Generally the depiction of the values is inthe form of a particular number of designators for the particular suit.Thus, a card that is the two of hearts shows two hearts, the four ofspades shows four spades, and so forth.

There are numerous alternative playing cards having different indicia ordifferent arrangements of indicia on the front side and in some cases,different numbers of cards in the deck. Some of these playing cards havemore than one value on the front side of the card, and may be arrangedin a manner analogous to or the same as dominos. These include theplaying cards of Paine (U.S. Pat. No. 516,165) which has six suits andthree colors with the card front sides having two rectangularcenterpieces which together are in the shape of a domino. The playingcards of Kingwill (U.S. Pat. No. 645,961) have identical paireddomino-like components on each front side.

The playing cards of Moller (U.S. Pat. No. 712,566) are in 26-card deckshaving divided front sides with the suits in specified pairs on thefront sides. While the cards of Schick (U.S. Pat. Des. No. 212,239) alsohave divided front sides with different suits on each half, there doesnot appear to be a strict pairing of the suits.

The cards of Hancock (U.S. Pat. No. 4,170,358) are in a 48-card deckwith the front side of each card divided into two by a diagonal dividingline, while the double denomination cards of Gleason, Jr. (U.S. Pat. No.5,280,916) make up a 52-card deck having a divided front side alsoseparated by a diagonal line.

Nielsen (U.S. Pat. No. 5,791,652) provides a deck of cardsrepresentative of a set of dominos, which are held in the hand intypical fan-like fashion and may be played as dominos are or as cardsare played. This patent sets forth many advantages for having dominos inthe form of cards, rather than the bulky heavy domino pieces that aretypical.

The indicia on most card front sides, other than the jack, queen andking, are typically traditional symbols such as hearts, spades, diamondsand clubs, or in the case of the domino-related cards of Nielsen, aresimply round spots (also called pips) identical to the spots on dominopieces. These spots or other indicia are not used to convey informationor to be decorative. Furthermore, the prior cards do not coordinate thedesign on the rear side with the indicia on the front side of the cards.

It is therefore an object of the invention to provide playing cardswhere the indicia on the front side of the cards are face depictionspots, preferably face depiction spots that convey information, arrangedin the manner of domino spots. It is a further object of the inventionto provide cards where the design on the rear side of the cards may becoordinated with the face depiction spots.

Other objects and advantages will be more fully apparent from thefollowing disclosure and appended claims.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The invention herein is a deck of playing cards having front sides withface depiction spots on each half of the front side of the card. Theface depiction spots may be arranged on the two halves as are dominospots. The appearance of the rear sides of the cards is preferablycoordinated with the face depiction spots. Other objects and features ofthe inventions will be more fully apparent from the following disclosureand appended claims.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 shows the front side of one of the cards of a first embodiment ofthe invention having identical halves.

FIG. 2 shows the front side of a second of the cards of the firstembodiment having differing halves.

FIG. 3 show the front side of a third of the cards also having differinghalves.

FIG. 4 shows the front side of a deck of cards having an alternativearrangement of face depiction spots.

FIG. 5 shows the rear side of a card of the first embodiment of theinvention.

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram of an alternative embodiment of a deck ofcards of the invention in which the face depiction spots are animals,e.g., lion, tiger, elephant, zebra, hippopotamus, and rhinoceros,indicated on the center of each half of the card as L, T, E, Z, H, andR, respectively.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION AND PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS THEREOF

The present invention provides playing cards having front sides withface depiction spots arranged in the manner of domino spots. Preferablythe rear side of each card also has at least one face depiction that isrelated thematically to the face depiction spots on the front side ofthe cards. The cards preferably have the same generally rectangularconfiguration and the standard size of playing cards as known in theart; however, changes in the shape and size may be made withoutdeparting from the invention herein.

As used herein, in most of the embodiments of the invention herein, theterm “face depiction spots” or “face depiction” preferably meansphotographs or artistic renderings of human or animal faces (heads) andmay include a depiction of more of the chosen animal that just the faceor head. The face depictions may be realistic depictions of faces or maybe stylized, but are preferably recognizable as faces or as includingfaces. It is recognized however that any selected group of images notcontaining faces, such as scenes or plants or plain spots, may be usedin the “face depiction spots” without departing from the inventionherein. Again, to minimize confusion with the term “face depictionspots”, the terms “rear side” and “front side” are used instead of “rearface” and “front face” when discussing the two sides of the cards. Also,the terms “deck” and “pack” are used interchangeably herein.

FIGS. 1-3 are views of the front sides 12 of a sufficient number ofcards 10 of the preferred embodiment of the invention herein toillustrate the preferred general arrangement of the face depiction spots14 on the front sides 12. Each of the front sides 12 preferably has twohalves 16, divided by from each other, preferably by a heavy line 18. Asshown in FIG. 1, the two halves 16 of the front side 12 of a card 10 maybe identical, having an identical number of face depiction spots 14,while as shown in FIGS. 2-3, the two halves 16 of the front side 12 ofthe card 10 may have a different number of identical face depictionspots 14. The size of the face depiction spots 14 may vary as suitablefor the number of face depictions spots that are on the half 16 of thecard 10 or as is deemed desirable. When the deck of cards hastwenty-eight cards in this embodiment of the invention, there may befrom 0-7 face depiction spots on each half of the front side of eachcard

These face depiction spots 14 are preferably arranged in the same manneras the spots on dominos as shown in FIGS. 1-3; however, as shown in FIG.4, the face depiction spots may be arranged symmetrically about thecenter of the particular card half 16, for example in a circular orother regular form on each half of the front side, or they may bearranged in any chosen form by the designer. In the symmetricarrangement as shown in FIG. 4, the face depiction spots are plain dots24 and do not include faces. One alternative arrangement is to have morespots than 6, for example, to have a circle of 6 spots with a centralspot, so that there are seven spots on one side of the card. Having morespots allows the deck of cards to be larger, as each number of spots canbe paired with each other number of spots on the two halves of cards, aswell as with a duplicate side of the card, or alternatively, there maybe the same number of cards in the deck with all halves 16 having facedepiction spots 14 rather than having any blank halves 16.

The size of the face depiction spots 14 may be larger or smallerrelative to the size of the card 10 than that shown in the figuresherein without departing from the invention, so long as the facedepiction spot 14 is large enough to be visible during use and is smallenough to fit on the card 10 without overlapping any other facedepiction spots.

Most preferably, the face depiction spots 14 are designed to showspecific information. Thus, they may educate the purchaser or recipientof the cards as to a medical specialty of the source of the cards or mayin other ways provide useful educational information to the recipient oruser of the cards. As can be seen from FIGS. 1-4, a most preferred facedepiction spot 14 for use in a plastic surgery medical clinic comprisesa face having a cleft lip. Thus, in this preferred embodiment, at eachof the locations on the front side where a corresponding domino piecehas a spot, the front side of the preferred card of the invention hereinhas a face depiction spot 14 comprising a face with a cleft lip. As inthe other embodiments of the invention herein, each face depiction spot14 is preferably circular in external contour or placed within acircular outline, so that it more clearly is analogous to a spot on adomino piece.

Preferably, as shown in FIG. 5, the rear side 22 of the preferred cards10 is coordinated in appearance to the face depiction spots 14 on thefront side. In the preferred embodiment discussed above, the rear side22 of the preferred card 10 has a face depiction 26 in which the cleftlip has been corrected. Such a face depiction on the rear side of thecard is preferably larger than the face depiction spots 14 that are onthe front side of the card.

When the cards are used to communicate information about a business ornon-profit entity, additional information (not shown herein) on theentity, such as name, address and contact information, as well asadvertising and they like, may also be provided on the card, such as onthe rear side of the card.

Alternative embodiments of the invention herein include cards with otherhuman faces, and may depict other medical “before and after” faces onthe two sides of the cards as discussed above with respect to thepreferred face depiction spot. Alternatively, the human faces may be anydesired human faces.

In further alternative embodiments of the invention, the face depictionspots 14 may have animal heads (faces) or may also include a depictionof the whole animal, and the face depiction spots, as shown in FIG. 6may occupy half of the front side of the card, so that there is only asingle face depiction spot on each half. In the deck of cars shown inFIG. 6, the locations where a picture of a lion, tiger, elephant, zebra,hippopotamus, and rhinoceros, would be in the central area of each half16 are indicated on the center of each half of the card as L, T, E, Z,H, and R, respectively. In a card game with single spots on each half ofthe front side, the players, rather than matching the numbers of spotson a half of the front side of the card, match the animal itself (e.g.,lion (L) with lion, elephant (E) with elephant, etc.). In this instance,the rear of the card may be chosen to be coordinated with the animaltheme of the cards, or may be related to a business or any other design.Other decks of cards may have any other chosen sets of spots, forexample, fish, insects, birds, prehistoric animals, faces of moviestars, presidents, and the like, without departing from the inventionherein.

Optional additional indicia may be placed on each card. For example, asis done in the case of standard playing cards, small indicia may beplaced on opposite corners of the cards. In this invention, such numberindicia as shown in FIGS. 1-4 preferably give the number of spots oneach half of the card, so that someone who is holding the cards instandard fan-shape in his hand may know what the number of facedepiction spots is on each half of the card. Thus if there are five facedepiction spots on one half of the card and three face depiction spotson the other half of the card, the number indicia would preferably show5/3 on the end having four face depiction spots and 3/5 on the endhaving two face depiction spots. Where there are animal depictions thatcomprise the face depiction spots, these number indicia may be replacedby words or symbols indicating the animals on the two halves of thefront side as shown in FIG. 6 by the letters L, T, E, R, H, G and Z inthe upper left corners of the cards, no matter which half 16 of the cardis upward.

While it is preferred that the number of cards and overall design of theface depiction spots on the front sides of the cards of the inventioncorrespond to the number of dominos in a set and their overall design ofspots, included within the invention are decks of cards where themaximum number of face depiction spots on a half of a front side is notsix. Thus, rather than having a maximum number of six spots (facedepiction spots) on a half, there may be cards in the deck having moreface depiction spots (e.g., 7 or 8 or more), thus allowing a deck withmore cards. Alternatively, the playing cards of the invention may bepart of smaller decks in which no card has more than, for example, fiveface depiction spots on a half. Preferably, the minimum number of cardsin the deck to provide a sufficient number of plays for the players is28.

The playing cards of the invention having multiple face depiction spotson the playing cards are preferably played using standard domino rulesas known in the art. Thus, there are preferably 2-4 players who aredealt 7 cards each. The player with identical halves on one of the frontcards starts the game, and if more than one player has a card withidentical halves (or if no one did), the first to play may be chosenwith a coin toss or other random selection method known in the art. Toplay the game, the players in playing sequence places a card down on theplaying surface, matching the number of face depiction spots on one halfof the card to a card already on the table having the same number offace depiction spots on one or both halves until a player runs out ofcards. One half of each card being played needs to be placed adjacent toa card that has already been played, and in particular needs to beplaced next to a half of the already played card that matches a half ofthe new card being played. If that half is not exposed (in other wordsif a card has already been played on that side of that half of thealready played card, a new card cannot be placed there. Players pass ifthey cannot play. If players play in teams, if a member of a team wins,so does the team. If play cannot continue and all players still havecards, the player with the lowest number of points wins. Of course,other rules acceptable to the players may be followed using the cards ofthe invention.

For playing cards of the invention having a single face depiction spot(e.g., animal depiction) on each half of the playing cards, there areagain preferably 28 cards, with 7 different figures in the deck ofcards. Each figure appears 7 times in the deck, once with each of theother 6 figures and once with a duplicate of that figure. The numericscore kept during play is a count of number of cards left when the gamefinishes or the sum of the numbers on the halves 16 of the cards left,or alternative methods of counting and scoring may be used as desired.

While the invention has been described with reference to specificembodiments, it will be appreciated that numerous variations,modifications, and embodiments are possible, and accordingly, all suchvariations, modifications, and embodiments are to be regarded as beingwithin the spirit and scope of the invention.

1. A deck of playing cards, each playing card comprising: a) a frontside having two halves; each of the two halves having at least one facedepiction spot; and b) a rear side having an appearance coordinated tothe face depiction spots.
 2. The deck of playing cards of claim 1,wherein the face depiction spots on the front side are arranged as arespots on domino pieces.
 3. The deck of playing cards of claim 1, whereinthe rear side has a face depiction related to the face depiction spotson the two halves.
 4. The deck of playing cards of claim 3, wherein theface depiction spots on the two halves are human faces with cleft lips,and wherein the face depiction on the rear side is the same human facebut without a cleft lip.
 5. The deck of playing cards of claim 1,wherein the face depiction spots include faces of animals.
 6. The deckof playing cards of claim 1, wherein there are one to six face depictionspots on each half.
 7. The deck of playing cards of claim 1, whereinwhen there are more than two face depiction spots on a half, the facedepiction spots are arranged symmetrically about a central area of eachhalf.
 8. The deck of playing cards of claim 1, further comprisingindicia on a corner of each half related to the number of face depictionspots on each half of the card.
 9. A deck of playing cards, each playingcard comprising: a) a front side having two halves; each of the twohalves having at least one face depiction spot; and b) a rear sidehaving a selected appearance.
 10. The deck of playing cards of claim 9,wherein the face depiction spots comprise animal pictures, and there isone animal picture on each half of the front side.
 11. The deck ofplaying cards of claim 8, further comprising indicia on a corner of eachhalf related to the animal pictures on each half of the card
 12. Amethod of playing cards, comprising: a) providing a deck of cardsaccording to claim 1; b) dealing the cards to 2-4 players; c)determining if one player only has identical halves on a dealt card, andif yes, selecting that one player to begin play, and if not, deciding afirst player by a random selection method; d) beginning play by placinga card on a playing surface; e) sequentially having players play a newcard adjacent a card already played by matching a half of the new cardto an exposed half of a card already played; and f) continuing playuntil one player plays all that player's cards or until no player canmatch half of one of that player's cards to an exposed half of a cardalready played.